


The God Machine

by Savaial



Category: Dr Who - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Donna is awesome, Donna's family is awesome, M/M, Miracles happen, No Smut, Pining Master, Really Pining Master
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:16:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savaial/pseuds/Savaial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master's hearts grow three sizes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The God Machine

**Author's Note:**

> This was written because I hate what happened to Donna. She deserved better.

The Master hadn’t ducked into the old cathedral to pray, of course, just to elude Torchwood, UNIT, and various other unofficially affiliated agencies that would ruin things for him. Surprisingly, there were no worshipers hanging about. Pleased, he grabbed a long black cassock and indulged in the trite, age-old dodge of hiding in a confessional. As he settled he heard the music of the holiday being transmitted to the populace, and he idly wondered if he could sneak up to the broadcast system. Tuning into some heavy metal or hard rock would probably wake everyone up from their religious homily-slash-commercial indulgence.

Tired, wishing he’d had time to rob a clothing store and pilfer a sarney stand, the Master closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Of all places for the Lord High President to wrest himself free of the Master’s control, of all times to be thrown from the Vortex. Earth, really? Please. He could thrive here even while wearing the face of the criminal ex-Prime Minister. All he had to do was fabricate a story about a poor, neglected little identical twin, or even brag about plastic surgery. Look at the Octo-Mom. She’d made herself famous with that shit. Well, that and having a clown car of a vagina.

Granted, his clothing stood in the way of things. Perhaps he’d use this cassock to get his foot in the door of a good shop. He could bathe in a hand sink somewhere to make himself smell better. The nasty, fake cherry air freshener in this place didn’t add to his élan, but he’d probably get to leave before it permeated his pores. Hopefully.

The sound of the large cathedral doors opening and shutting brought him out of his light, thoughtful trance. “This is it,” he heard a slightly out of breath, elderly man say. “This is where that lady spoke to me about the Doctor. She called him the ‘Sainted Physician’.”

“Dad, you know Donna’s not supposed to hear anything about that man,” a woman with a shrewish voice harped. Just the sound of her made the Master’s balls want to retreat to a safer place. “And, you told her to meet us here!”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” the man protested. “See? Only a tiny little piece of stained glass. She’ll never notice it!”

“Donna sees more than she lets on, Dad, and she’s starting to act very strange. I’m afraid what the Doctor did to her won’t be enough, that she’s slipping backward. Look what she did to-.”

“Shawn had a heart attack,” the old man argued, and the Master approved of the heat in his tone.

Wait. Donna. This old man in the church was Wilfred Mott. At Christmas. He chuckled silently, amazed at the quirks of the universe. Going by this odd little turn of events, the Doctor should show up soon.

“Dad, she-.”

“All right, I’m here,” came the brusque voice of Donna Noble. “Why are we in church? We don’t _**go**_ to church.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Wilfred said, and the Master heard by his tone he was really pleased to see his granddaughter. “I’m just having a few prayers, you know, for the less fortunate. Why don’t you and your mum go on and meet me at Hudson’s in a few minutes, hey? We can eat together before finishing the shopping.”

“Okay, Gramps,” Donna replied easily. “Mum, I picked us out a tree.”

“You are absolute rubbish at choosing a tree,” her mother said instantly, and the women’s voices faded away while still arguing. The Master heard the old man approach the lower altar, the groan of him settling onto his knees.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said. “I don’t know how to pray properly; never was taught how and never had much faith, to be honest.”

 _Tell me about it, old man_ , the Master thought.

“But, you made at least one thing I can have faith in, and that’s the Doctor.”

 _Oh, Christ._ The Master knew he was going to have to sit there, trapped in the confessional, and hear this ancient human blather on and on about the Doctor’s virtues. Torture.

“My granddaughter traveled with him, had all sorts of adventures. She loved it, loved being out there in space. She got that from me, I suppose.” Wilfred paused to draw a shaky breath and then let it out in a whoosh. “Some… accident happened. The Doctor called it a two-way biology meta…” The man made a frustrated sound. “I can’t remember. All I know is, he had to block her memories of being better.”

 _Biological two-way metacrisis,_ the Master thought, impressed. How had that happened? If the human had soaked up the Doctor, then she was special.

“If she remembers the Doctor, or the creatures she saw, her mind will catch fire and she’ll die,” Wilfred Mott went on, choking on his words. “And, I think she’s starting to remember. I think she _**did**_ remember, and that energy, that safety that the Doctor put in her to protect her, killed Shawn Temple.”

_Oh, Doctor, you botched it._

“The coroner said he had a heart attack, but he was only thirty-eight!” Wilfred fell silent then, and the Master eased up to view him through the lattice work. “Donna came back to live with us, and we have good money now that she’s won the lottery, but it’s not money I want, Lord. I want my granddaughter to have that wonderful life she gave up, to remember how brilliant she was, to know she saved the entire universe from those evil Daleks!” His voice broke into outright sobbing, but he quickly suppressed it.

The Master, always one to listen to his own capricious moods, smiled. “Wilfred Mott,” he said clearly but in a low voice.

“What?” Wilfred got to his feet as quickly as a man his age could manage, and stared around the cavernous room with shock and hope in his rheumy eyes.

“No, I’m not the Almighty, merely his servant,” the Master said, grinning. Servant of God, indeed. If he served any god, it would be Death. “Bring your granddaughter here after you have your meal. I will pray with her.”

“Y-you will?” Wilfred took two steps toward the confessional, having figured out where the voice came from. “Pardon my asking, but will your prayers be heard quicker than mine? I mean, you’re the Lord’s, I know, but…”

“The prayers of a humble man are heard,” the Master replied, “else _**I**_ should not be here to hear you.” The Master paused to consider the possibility that the deity this human worshiped could indeed be using him, and immediately shoved the idea into a waste bin. God didn’t exist, or he’d have come personally to stop the Master at least once or twice from some of his more nasty crimes. “Bring Donna here and leave her with me. Tell her whatever you like, but come back for her within the hour you depart. If nothing else I may set her to confession and relieve her soul of ordinary burdens.”

“Yes,” Wilfred said, his voice suddenly hopeful. “Confessing is supposed to be good for you, isn’t it? And, if she feels better even for now, I’ll take that.”

The Master saw him jam his knitted cap firmly onto his head, take a deep breath, and smile. He left without saying anything else, and the Master considered how brave the old human had proven.

Bravery wasn’t something the Master held stock in, really. Courage was for people who weren’t smart enough to have foresight, or to learn from the things that happened around them. Valor was suicide, sacrifice and waste. Yet, the old man was at the end of his years and had no reason to try and preserve himself. In the manner typical to humans, he selfishly tried to fix the problems with his friends and family, not grasping that mistakes often teach more than success, and that all creatures have to develop honestly in order for their path to mean a damned thing.

Still… The Master felt a kernel of respect for Wilfred Mott. Probably his honest prayer was to blame; the Master held a little personal attachment to ritual, to prayer. His own entreaties to the Invisible Powers never got answered, but maybe God was a busy man. Or woman. He hadn’t ruled that out. He settled back down to wait, and soon fell back into a light, preserving trance.

He’d fix the Doctor’s screw up, if for no other reason than to hold it over his head later.

 

**

 

“Hello?”

The Master straightened and rubbed his eyes. “I’m here,” he said. “Approach the far left confessional, my child.” He remembered the rhetoric of being a holy man on this planet well, having masqueraded as a vicar during a time the Doctor had been exiled to Earth.

He heard the adjoining compartment open and close. Donna sat quietly and said nothing. The Master remembered Donna as being a not unattractive female, a bit thick in body with brilliant ginger hair, eyes a little too closely set, but with smooth skin and a nice nose. For a human she wasn’t at all bad. The exemplary ones usually proved to be comprised heavily of silicon and plastic, so her physical faults were truly negligible to the Master. Besides, she had great, natural breasts and good hands; he liked those qualities.

“You’re afraid,” he said. “Don’t be. I merely want to listen to you.”

Donna gave a short, sharp laugh that sounded so familiar to the Master. It was a sound of suffering, pain both understood and barely tangible. The sound that escapes you when someone professes to care and is, in reality, only concerned with getting something from you. It hit him in the gut, that almost-goodness, that bitter amusement so few were able to hear. But, he heard it. He heard it and understood in a nanosecond what it meant. No one could reach her, and she fully believed no one ever would.

“You want to listen?” She asked, her voice faltering but going on with the grit of self-preservation, which the Master also understood and felt kinship for. “Gramps says you’ll help me pray, Father.” She paused and he heard her taking a short, sharp breath. “Do crazy people pray properly, I wonder?”

“You aren’t insane,” the Master told her in his most soothing voice, and he was _good_ at using his voice. He could enslave worlds with it. He’d _worked_ at it. Hypnotism, mesmerism, whatever one wanted to label it; he could do it, and had been able to do it nearly from birth. “You’re special, Donna. I know.”

“I’m not,” she swore. “ _ **God**_ , why does everyone say that to me? I’m no one, I promise you. Before I got lucky with the lottery I was a temp, a bloody temp, and that’s all I was ever good for.” She sighed wetly, with congestion, and the Master heard her rifling her handbag. A few seconds later she blew her nose soundly. “I’m not clever. I’m not artistic. I’m not even sociable.” She cleared her nasal passages again and released a breath that sounded close to the shudder of tears. “Worse, I’m not even _**pretty**_ , which can get a girl farther than anything else I just mentioned.”

In that moment, Donna Noble became very beautiful to the Master. She was aware of all her shortcomings, evidently, yet she persisted. She carried on. Yes, it hurt her, but she stubbornly went about promoting herself and her life. For centuries he’d done likewise with absolutely no positive feedback. With her limited lifespan, Donna matched him in scope. Her projected eighty-plus years compared to his thousands were painfully similar. They were the same where it counted.

“I think you must be gorgeous,” the Master said honestly, feeling a lump in his throat forming and just letting the emotion happen. “You’re one of God’s creatures,” he added quickly and smoothly, remembering that this planet’s holy men didn’t find anything comely. “God doesn’t make mistakes. The question is, where do you fit in that you haven’t found?”

“Where do I fit in?” Donna fell silent a few seconds before giving another, soul-cutting laugh. “What use is there for me?” she asked. “I want so much more than what everyone else seems satisfied with. Yet, I see nothing to try and grab.” Her silhouette bowed, and the Master saw the shadowy image of her hands coming up to cradle her face. “There’s a big _**nothing**_ in my heart. I know there’s so much, so much that I can’t even put a name to, but it never comes, not even in the smallest way.”

“You feel you aren’t worthy?” He asked, knowing full well that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she had the Doctor inside her, and the Doctor was all about grabbing onto life. He seized the day with more vigor and hope than anyone ever born, and he’d passed that onto Donna with the metacrisis, somehow.

“It’s not that I’m not worthy,” she said. “It’s that I’m trapped on this spinning ball of rock with a billion others creatures that don’t dream.” She dropped her hands and looked at the partition between them, tears streaming from her eyes. “They don’t dream,” she repeated.

The Master released a quiet breath. He’d help her, and not just because it would show up the Doctor. No, he’d help Donna Noble because she deserved it. He never thought he’d feel that way about a human, but there it was. He gathered himself a bare moment and opened his eyes. “Donna,” he said quietly. “I want you to close your eyes and empty your head. Do you know what I mean?”

“Like meditation?” She asked. “God, I’ve tried. In seconds my mind is racing ahead. I can’t shut myself off!”

“No, not like meditation,” he assured. “In meditation you’re expected to drain of all emotion and ego. I’m asking you to empty your head of expectation, of success and failure. I’m asking you to open up and let all your thoughts come forth without judgment or prejudice. I’m asking you to let your mind flow.”

“How?” She asked in a voice so full of hope and pain that the Master trembled with it.

“Don’t think about what’s wrong or right, or even consider anything as an anchor,” he instructed gently. “Just get rid of what you think. Purge all those things that keep you in place, all those fears and the expectations of others. Just be.”

“Just be,” she echoed, and the Master sensed the Doctor’s hastily drawn barrier surging forth. He’d done all he could on such short notice, the Master noted of the Doctor’s efforts. He’d preserved her with caring and love and other more intimate emotions. He hadn’t wanted her to burn out and die.

The Master reached out to Donna with his mind, his will, feeling her succumb. “Now,” he said. “Come to my side of the confessional.” He had to do a lot of work on her in bare moments, and couldn’t muck it up.

She didn’t recognize him, being under his hypnotic influence. He placed their foreheads together and dove in. And there was the Doctor’s intellect mingling with Donna’s, or, at least it waited to do so. The Doctor had cordoned himself off to protect her human comprehension, her sanity.

The Master began rerouting synapses by force of will, sweating with the effort of doing so much exact work so very quickly. It was a massive undertaking, trying to sort this jumble of brilliance and imagination, just staggering in scope. So, he opened up the part of the human brain rarely used and pushed the Doctor in there where he’d be safe and useful instead of cramming into the areas already developed and full. This would allow Donna to tap into the Time Lord without eliminating human perspective. She’d be disoriented for days, probably, as things settled down, but she’d adjust.

The Master finished and released her. Donna opened her eyes. The fuzziness bled away slowly. “But, you were going to eat me,” she said distinctly before fainting away.

Grinning, the Master picked her up and carried her to the sanctuary. No sooner had he propped her up in a pew, Wilfred Mott returned. They locked eyes and the Master approved of the instantaneous anger and suspicion. “It’s you,” he said, coming forward as quickly as a man of advanced years could. “What’ve you done to Donna?”

“Fixed the Doctor’s mess,” the Master answered, running a hand through Donna’s hair and admiring it. The color was nice, and she was clean and soft. “She’ll be a bit disoriented for a few days, but after that you’ll have her the way you wished. She’ll remember all she’s done and it won’t burn her mind out.”

Wilfred knocked his hand clear. “Why would you help her, you monster? You wanted to kill us all, replace us all with yourself! I saw it happen.”

The Master gave an inward sigh. He couldn’t expect the old man to understand his motives. “I like her, I decided. You as well. I don’t like your daughter very much, though.”

Wilfred stared at him. He took in the stolen cassock. “You reek,” he said flatly. He wasn’t going to try and make sense of things, or to figure him out.

“Yes, I apologize. I’ll find a sink somewhere.” The Master obliged the topic dodge and subsequent small talk. He had nothing better to do, and this human actually knew him, at least in passing. Having someone you know is always encouraging.

Wilfred looked down at his granddaughter, his face crinkling as he thought. “You fixed her,” he repeated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“The Doctor couldn’t.”

“I’m not your precious, adopted savior,” the Master told him coldly. “I specialize in mental sciences. The Doctor’s only specialty is picking up Earth girls.”

Wilfred’s lips moved upward at the corners the slightest bit. “I’m calling a cab,” he said. “When it comes, you can load Donna into it for me.” He straightened a little bit and met the Master’s gaze directly. “Then, you can come home with us and have a bath.”

The Master never stopped being surprised by humans. He put Donna in the taxi, smiling. Oh, excellent; a bath might improve his outlook a great deal.

 

**

 

“Are you out of your mind, Dad?”

“Not quite yet, sweetheart. Keep your voice down.”

“You invited a maniac into our house and you tell me to ‘keep it down’?”

“I’m telling you, he says he cured Donna. If he did, he deserves our help.”

“He’s a liar!”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“He’s a murderer, then! We know _**that**_!”

 

The voices faded with the slamming of a door. The Master, soaking in a very comfortable claw foot tub, added a bit more bubble bath. He loved bubble bath. He’d really like some scented, precious oils, but he’d make do. He’d already changed his water twice, and knew he’d have to finish with a shower. He intended to stand under the spray until waterlogged.

Finally finished, the Master put his stolen cassock back on without anything else. He’d rather go starkers than put on the disgusting, filthy denim and hoodie again. He eyed his reflection and grimaced at the scraggly facial hair. This body couldn’t grow a proper beard, so he’d opted to go clean shaven. He needed a razor and a haircut.

Wandering out, the Master went in search of Wilfred. He found him and the shrew-voiced daughter sitting tensely at the dining table, not speaking or looking at each other. As one, they turned their attention upon him. “I need a haircut and a razor,” the Master said simply.

Wilfred got up and walked past him. “Come along then,” he ordered.

Pleased the human had a backbone, the Master followed him all the way back to the loo. Wilfred pointed at the closed toilet. “Sit,” he said, taking a straight razor out of a drawer along with a leather strop. “I’m just assuming you don’t know how to do this the old fashioned, Earth way.” He started running the razor up and down the strop with brisk, practiced strokes. The old man knew his business.

The Master had never shaved with a straight razor. He’d killed a few people with them, but that hardly counted, and he thought not to mention it to his host. So, he shook his head. “No, you’re right.”

Wilfred gave his face a thoughtful look, then took a soapy brush and started lathering him. “It’s none of my business, but I’m going to ask. Why do you hate the Doctor?”

“I don’t hate him,” the Master answered honestly.

Wilfred frowned at him as he applied the razor. His hands didn’t shake a bit. “You strapped him to a chair, smacked his face, insulted him, and made an arse of yourself,” he protested.

“Foreplay,” the Master told him, grinning.

“Foreplay, dear me,” Wilfred said faintly. “Didn’t know he… I mean…”

“A Time Lord can be either sex. We aren’t hung up on gender roles, like you apes,” the Master informed.

Wilfred frowned again. “So, is he…?”

“I have no idea,” the Master admitted. It posed an interesting line of thought, certainly, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think of the Doctor as sexual. It would have brought too much to their equation, far too much.

“Are you?”

“I’m not picky. I do like breasts, though.”

Wilfred blushed. “Blimey. Just come right on out with it, hey?”

“You asked.” The Master turned his head to let Wilfred shave his neck. “You’re awfully curious. Want a go at me, Granddad?”

“Heavens, no,” Wilfred spluttered.

“You know, you could just slit my throat and rid the universe of a star villain,” the Master pointed out.

“You’d just do that Time Lord body-change thing. Besides, it’s not my place to murder you, not unless you’re threatening people I love.”

“I’m a threat to the Doctor and you love him.”

“The Doctor made it clear he’d rather die than have you come to harm,” Wilfred answered, moving to the other side of his face.

“It’s only because he didn’t want to be the last Time Lord,” the Master muttered, feeling bitter. The Doctor only cared about him now that he was the only Time Lord standing between him and lonely perdition.

“And you don’t?” Wilfred lifted his eyebrows. He’d nearly finished shaving him, now. “Don’t feed me that. Besides any fool could see he cares about you.”

“Caring and parenting are two different things. He never takes me seriously.” The Master felt the hardness in his core start stress-fracturing. His drums got a little louder. “I could reduce the universe to cinders and he’d only lecture me about proper choices before locking me up in his erratic bucket of bolts Type 40.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilfred said, sounding sincere. “You’re trying to get his notice and he just tears along, oblivious.” He shook his head slowly.

“I’m not trying to get his notice,” the Master snapped, hot at the mere suggestion. He tried to stand only to have Wilfred shove him back down with a surprisingly firm grip.

Wilfred said nothing, but the Master could tell he knew how he felt. He got an urge to kill him to protect his secret, but suddenly the Master just felt tired. So tired. He shut his eyes and let Wilfred clean his face with a hot, damp towel. The old man got scissors and started cutting, taking some of the washed out blond hairs away. The snip-snip-snip soothed him.

The human dragged a comb through his hair backward, and it felt good. “Come downstairs,” he said. “We’re having steaks and soup tonight, and you look too thin.”

The Master hadn’t expected a dinner invitation. He couldn’t help stare at Wilfred a little. “Your daughter will make your life a living hell, old man,” he said.

“She’s good at that when you’re _**not**_ here,” Wilfred told him. “Besides, you’ll have to bring Donna down; none of us are strong enough.”

 

**

 

“Donna, dear, hold your fork right.”

“Donna’s doing fine, leave her.”

“She’s dropping food all over the place!”

“What’d ya hire a cleaning lady for, then, the view?” Wilfred scowled at his daughter.

The Master watched the volley, hearing his own father in Donna’s mother. Disgusted, he grabbed Donna’s chair and hauled her closer to himself. His hands were moving before his brain could stop them. He cut a piece of steak and stabbed the fork into it, then held it up to Donna’s lips. “My father spoke to me exactly like you speak to her,” he told the matron.

Donna’s head dropped to his shoulder. She rallied and accepted the bite of food.

“I care what happens to my daughter,” Sylvia said, anger in her voice and on her face. “You and that Doctor walked into her life and she’s never been the same since. He poisoned her for a normal life and then dumped her here after ruining her mind. Now you think you’re all high and mighty because you were able to clean up his mess.”

Wilfred stood, took his daughter by the hand and led her from the dining room. She protested and argued the entire way out, until her voice faded completely. The Master silently and patiently fed Donna her entire meal before he remembered to eat his own. He let her lean on his shoulder while he ate, wondering how a human had gotten him so angry he’d talked about his father, and also wondering what had led him to trying to make a human better.

After, he had to carry her to her bedroom, and she talked gibberish the entire way. The Master caught a few words about ‘living fat’ and ‘volcano day’, and smiled. She was remembering, and she wasn’t burning.

 

**

 

“You can stay here,” Wilfred said, showing him into a bedroom. “I’ll kip with Donna; she won’t mind, and I’ll feel better about how she’s doing if I’m with her.” The old soldier turned and started to leave, then stopped and looked at the Master over his shoulder. “Sylvia won’t come up here.”

“Good.” The Master wasted no time in stretching out on the bed.

“Good night, Master,” the old man said easily, and left him.

“Good night, old man,” the Master answered, long after he was alone.

 

**

 

He dreamed about his father for the first time in centuries that night, the disapproving stares, the criticism for befriending someone not Loom Woven, the fear that someone would see his son slumming with low class trash like Theta Sigma. The Master awoke in a cold sweat. In seconds he felt stupid. His father had been dead for hundreds of years. Why would he dream about him now? Well, that Sylvia woman, probably.

He settled back down and looked out the window. The old man had nothing in the way of a view of the stars, no curtains or blinds. The Master desperately wanted to get back out there to the more familiar view. Still, he’d spent enough time on Earth to find this view familiar, so it was comforting. He’d slept enough, so he got up and went to explore the house.

He found Sylvia in a recreation room, making something out of two long needles and thick thread. Curious, he sat opposite her and watched her hands. She had skill at whatever this was. “What are you doing?”

“Knitting,” came the terse, anxious reply.

The Master remembered seeing this before, then. “It looks complicated. What do you do if you move the needles wrong?”

Sylvia gave him a sharp look. “You’ve never seen anyone knit?”

“In the 60’s, when I was here during the Doctor’s exile, briefly,” he answered.

Sylvia looked at him a very long time, it seemed. “If I drop a stitch I just do it over,” she said. “Sometimes whole rows need torn out.”

“What are you making?” He persisted.

“A jumper.” Sylvia continued to eye him as if he’d suddenly brandish a knife and have at her.

The Master decided to let her relax a little. “I’m not here to murder your family, you know,” he said. “I’m trying to help. I’m awkward at it because I wasn’t ever good at being good, so you can calm down.”

“You’re an alien, living in my home, violent and possibly insane, and you have control over my poor daughter,” Sylvia said flatly. “You were willing to destroy my entire planet after turning us all into copies of you. Forgive me if your presence makes me uneasy.” She put her knitting down. “Dad says you’re centuries old, but you don’t look much over a well-kept forty years. You’ve got a double-pulse in your neck. If the physical stuff isn’t enough to ram it home what an alien you are, the oddness of seeing you in a cassock is jarring.”

“You weren’t this leery of the Doctor, were you?” The Master asked. The Doctor made friends everywhere despite his alieness, despite his difference to everyone else. The Master long resented how easily his counterpart interacted, how social and glib his nature.

“I highly disapprove of the Doctor,” Sylvia said, giving the Master a shock. “For a time I hated him, because he exposed my little girl to danger over and over until he actually damaged her. No words I said would keep her from him. The thrill of traveling in time and space was too much temptation for an ordinary girl who never got enough male attention or recognition.” Sylvia pressed her lips together and looked away for a moment, her eyes clouding with thought. “The Doctor knew he’d be a danger to Donna, but he took her anyway, because she insisted and because he’s lonely. It was selfish of him.”

The Master thought about her words. He could easily see Donna’s personality in his head, having touched it and manipulated it in order to preserve her. She wasn’t an ordinary human, actually, not even before she got the Doctor’s mental acuity. She was extraordinarily compassionate, which he never considered a strength, but that didn’t mean the dimensions of it didn’t prove vast. She had a lot of stubborn grit, which he did consider a plus. Nothing ever got done by people easily pleased or led. He could see what the Doctor liked about Donna. She’d evidently held him in check quite a bit, which he’d ever and always needed.

“You don’t think your daughter is special, do you?” He asked.

“No, I wished she wasn’t so that she’d be safe,” Sylvia corrected. “But she attracts disaster, somehow, and apparently also alien men. Why can’t she settle down with a nice, human man and keep him?”

Frowning, the Master wondered why humans were so caught up in ‘safe’ and ‘nice’ and other such rubbish that meant nothing. He turned the television on and surfed until he found cartoons, his hind brain pouring over human oddity while he watched examples of their clever madness prance in two dimensions. Sylvia went back to her knitting, silent but watchful.

She broke her silence with an uncomfortable revelation. “You’re a lot like him,” she said. “Dad describes the Doctor as playful and sometimes impatient, full of energy and questions.”

The Master had heard before how much he and the Doctor were alike. They’d been compared to each other all through school for their acumen and interests, even their habits. They weren’t related to each other, like so many Time Lords, which is what drew attention. The Master was Loom Woven, an amalgamation of genetic material spun and threaded into itself until the maker produced a stable and ideal child. The Doctor was born naturally.

The Master realized _he_ was a jumper, and smiled even though his hearts screamed at the analogy. “Do I need a row or two torn out?” he asked Sylvia. She didn’t answer, probably because she didn’t understand. But, the Master thought about it all morning.

 

**

 

“Try this one,” the Master said, sliding a paper across the table to Donna, who looked at him and sighed. She’d accepted his help with a lot more faith and courage than he’d thought he’d get, which encouraged him.

“Time, space, matter, anti-matter,” Donna said, looking at the paper. “But I don’t understand the tenses. It’s like I do for a moment, then the understanding slides away like water on a slope.”

“It’ll come to you. Don’t push.” The Master took the paper back and wrote again.

“Is this your language?” Wilfred asked, pausing on his way to the sideboard.

“Yes, High Gallifreyan,” the Master answered, somewhat impatiently. He was using all his patience for Donna, currently. “As the Doctor and I are all that’s preserving it, I thought it best to prod your granddaughter’s eyes with it.”

“What does he mean?” Sylvia asked, putting down her dish cloth and joining them.

“He and the Doctor are the only two Time Lords left in the universe,” Wilfred answered.

“What happened to the rest of them?” Sylvia peered at the paper and shook her head. “It’s… pretty,” she said cautiously.

The Master blinked and looked up at her. “Pretty?” He’d never heard that before.

“Yes, all symmetrical like a quilt pattern.” She touched the word for Universe and traced it all the way around. “So, why are you the only two left?”

“The Doctor burned the planet,” the Master answered, smiling a grim and hateful little smile.

“He… killed… your entire race?” Sylvia drew back in horror, her eyes filled with it and her hands twisted in her shirt.

“Wasn’t his fault, I’m sure,” the Master told her. “Well, technically it was, but if he’d had another option he’d have taken it. The bleeding wound savior would never commit genocide unless he had no other options. We’re discussing a man who won’t even swat an insect.” _Insects like humans_ , he added mentally. He drew the word for domination, overlapping it with the first word to show they were joined, then drew the finials for the present tense. “He’s saved your planet from thousands of menaces, including yours truly, many times.”

“What’ve you got against us?” Wilfred asked, sitting beside Donna and giving her a place to lean.

“Nothing. To me you’re usually not more than a curiosity, or a way to make _**him**_ feel bad,” the Master answered. “Still, I have to admit you’re industrious and creative little apes.”

“We’re not apes,” Sylvia snapped.

“Oh, yes, you are,” he corrected. “Those so-called Greys you go on about were your turning point in evolution, but you’re still apes.”

“What’s he mean, Dad?” Sylvia asked quickly.

“Greys,” Wilfred murmured. “Those aliens people say abduct them for experimentation and such.”

“That’s just checking up on the livestock,” the Master informed smugly. “Try this one, Donna.”

“Universal Domination,” she said after a second. “Present tense.”

“Good,” he praised. “It’s getting easier, isn’t it?”

“A little. If I stare at it too long it gets all swimmy.”

“That’s because it’s not meant to be stared at. This language was once capable of tearing down and rebuilding the stars.” The Master smiled ruefully as he drew the sigils for abstracted, conceptual life. This was a more difficult theory for her to grasp, and he felt curious as to how her comprehension fared with it. “If my people were still around, they’d know I was using it; that’s how far Gallifreyan power and culture once reached, Donna. When you got a part of the Doctor, you received a heritage as well as a superior mind.”

Donna watched him. She tilted her head. She put her chin in her hand and braced on the table. “Your voice is hypnotic,” she observed. “It lilts up and down in a cadence.”

“That’s me,” the Master said smugly, giving her the next problem. “Just call me Master Mesmer.”

 

**

 

“So, can I ask you about the Doctor?” Donna asked. They were sitting with Wilfred on a small hillside, taking turns with the telescope after having eaten a tremendously rich and fattening meal. The Master appreciated Sylvia’s non-healthful cooking immensely, for it slowed his metabolism.

“What about him?” The Master sipped his Earl Grey, enjoying it greatly. Sylvia, for all her faults, brewed _perfect_ tea. Not like that Francine woman. No, Sylvia knew how to make a good cuppa as well as how to cook.

“Why doesn’t he have a proper name? Why don’t you?” Donna frowned and the Master could tell she tried to glean the information herself from her slowly unfolding Time Lord mental resources.

“He does. We do. But, the names aren’t spoken because of their power.” The Master got up for his turn and had a long look at Venus. “I know his name and he knows mine, but it’s an accident that we do, and we’d never speak them no matter how angry, or how important it might be. It’s so unimaginably offensive and cruel that no Time Lord would ever do it.”

“Oh.” Donna got up and swiveled the scope toward the moon. “I never went to the moon,” she said, changing the topic, “never thought to ask the Doctor if we could. Yet, it’s right there. You’d think I’d have considered it.”

“So, knowing each other’s names,” Wilfred broke in. “Does it make things… awkward? Is it like not talking about something shameful?”

The Master considered the fact that the Doctor often looked like he was thinking about the Master’s hidden name, and the fact that he often considered the Doctor’s. “Not shameful,” he informed. “When people of this planet look at a mulatto and want to know more about their heritage, do they ask?”

“I get it,” Donna said immediately. “It’s something you’d like to talk about because it’s interesting, but you don’t because it’s personal.”

“Exactly. Gallifreyan names resonate with power, because they stretch to fit the soul. Soon, the name and the soul are one force. You don’t drag someone’s soul into the light of day simply because you want a better look.” The Master finished his tea and got on his back to look up at the brilliant stars. Somewhere in the universe the Doctor traveled along, unknowing of the Master’s return, blissfully unaware of Donna’s rebirth. He ached to see him. Just burned with the want.

 

**

 

The Master took a much needed break from the Noble family and broke into the well guarded remains of Torchwood, pilfering enough raw supplies to make another laser screwdriver. Back in his borrowed bedroom, he compiled the pieces and spent hours creating one better than his last. This one didn’t utilize Lazerus, naturally, as the Master had lost the Doctor’s genetic code.

“You’re making a laser.” Donna came in without knocking, but the Master had grown accustomed to that. She sat beside him and looked at the box of parts. “Could I make a sonic screwdriver for myself?”

“Go ahead,” he invited. Once the Doctor discovered Donna was on the mend he’d no doubt want to free her of Earth, and she’d need a trick or two. Traveling with the Doctor meant needing a half-dozen tricks up each sleeve and a few random toys in each pocket.

 

**

 

Donna shoved the last textbook into the floor, exhaling heavily. The Master had her practicing speed reading plus the comprehension of what she read. “Are physics and chemistry and math just easy when you’re a Time Lord?” She asked. “I understand it all now, and I didn’t before. Part of me is really embarrassed about my previous ignorance, yet I look at what I’m doing and I don’t feel like _**me**_.”

“It’s easier, yes, but the Doctor is brilliant, and it’s his mind you’re incorporating, so it’s always going to feel odd,” the Master told her. “Be glad your metacrisis wasn’t with me, or you’d be insane as well as a genius.” He tapped the next stack, one on marine biology. “Keep at it, Donna; when the Doctor comes back I want you to shock the shit out of him.”

“I can do that with a slap,” she replied darkly.

“Don’t hold back on my account.”

Donna snickered before attacking marine biology.

 

**

 

“We’re going out to get you some clothes,” Donna announced, breezing into the recreation room where the Master watched Sylvia piece a quilt. She’d used his instructional papers on Gallifreyan for her design, and it fascinated the Master that she’d accidently combined Time Traveler with Love and Explosions. Even her finials were spot-on, variations on Now and Nearly Now and Always Was. As he got up to follow Donna out, he caught Sylvia’s eye and was startled to see a smug look lurking in there.

**

 

“That’s too old for you,” Donna scolded, taking the shirt and tossing it back on the table it came from. “I don’t care if you are nine-hundred-and-something-or-other; you’re too energetic and sexy for old man prim-and-press.” She dragged him over to the thermal Henleys and gave him a small, gentle push.

Pondering Donna’s opinion, the Master wandered. He chose four of the same shirt in different colors just in time for Donna to come back and haul him to the trousers for a fitting. In what seemed no time he had a decent wardrobe in two large bags, and Donna was pulling him to the leather coat shop. She chattered in his ear about ‘looking good for the Doctor’ and ‘don’t you want to make him jealous’?

Indeed.

Donna bought him a long, expertly fitted black leather coat that fell to his knees and buckled shut all down the front. She bought him steel toe boots, and when he complained about how clunky they felt, pointed out that he could now kick someone without hurting his toes. He conceded that. She made him buy black Converse even though he hated the thought of wearing something the Doctor liked. Finally, she helped him go through black, kidskin gloves until he found the perfect pair. To celebrate, they went to a truly posh restaurant.

Feeling like a kept man, which wasn’t at all unpleasant, the Master ordered the surf and turf and an expensive red wine.

“Now you look like you ought to,” Donna said as she ate shrimp alfredo. “Fashionable, dangerous, and hot.”

Lips twitching, the Master realized he’d come to enjoy Donna’s pawky sense of humor, her unfailing honesty and plainspoken thoughts. She returned a good turn for receiving one, of equal or greater value. Actually, he _liked_ her. And, he almost thought he would have even if she hadn’t acquired a superior intellect.

“I’d keep the cassock, though,” she went on. “I’m sure there are goth-priest chasers on more worlds than this one.”

 

**

 

When the dishwasher blew up, Donna and the Master tag-teamed it with their favorite tools.

 

*

 

When the car stopped moving, they spent a snowy afternoon taking it apart and upgrading it to illegal but wonderful specifications.

 

*

 

When Sylvia finished the quilt, she gave it to the Master with nary a smile, but he knew she was pleased when he thanked her properly.

Wilfred liked his modified telescope so much he wouldn’t come inside for anything but Christmas pudding

 

**

 

The Master woke on Boxing Day early, mainly because Donna was hammering on his door. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled into the hallway only to have her start screaming about his state of dress. She shoved him back into his bedroom. “Naked!” She shouted. “What is it with Time Lords? Hurry up and get dressed for breakfast and presents.”

In a stunned sort of state the Master threw on some clothes and made his way downstairs. The faces that turned to look at him weren’t afraid. Human, and not afraid. Human, and not worshipful but warm and open. Humans looking at him with pleasure.

They laughed and talked around him as breakfast happened, free and enthusiastic. Donna teasing her mother about getting up before ten in the morning, Wilfred talking about stars, and Sylvia making sure everyone had seconds. Soon they were crowding together in the recreation room, handing out gifts. Everyone received two, even him.

He stood there looking at the brightly wrapped boxes, at the real velvet ribbon and tags with his name. He hadn’t bought anything for anyone. Three weeks ago he wouldn’t have cared or even considered it. His chest hurt and he didn’t know why.

“Don’t,” Sylvia said to him quietly. She stood beside of him but didn’t look up at him, just kept her eyes on her daughter and father. “You’ve already given us hope. You’re clear for the next forever-Christmases.”

The Master understood that, and he wanted to accept it, but he felt like he’d failed at something, and he hated failure. So, he put on his coat and strode out into the snow, intent upon a very human habit of last minute Christmas shopping. Despite this he found himself entering the cathedral he’d ducked into so many weeks ago.

A few worshippers sat in silent communication with their god. The Master walked past them and straight to the large, stained glass window. There, he saw what Wilfred Mott had referred to. A tiny depiction of the Doctor’s TARDIS. He stared at it for a very long time. It wasn’t until his eyes started hurting that he realized he was crying.

He hadn’t cried in seven hundred years.

 

**

 

Donna was the only one awake when he returned late. He found her in the middle of a pile of television parts. It looked as though she had a modification project going on. “Hey,” she said softly as he collapsed onto the sofa. “Sorry I couldn’t get you what you wanted.”

“What’s that?” The Master asked, aware she knew he’d hoped the Doctor would come. The Doctor loved Christmas, and often got nostalgic, returning to past haunts. “Never mind,” he said, giving it up as a bad wash. “I’m done pretending.”

Donna abandoned her project. She sat on the coffee table opposite him, her eyes sad for his sake. “You have so much to offer. You’re brilliant, more than a match for him. So, why are you both still alone?”

“It’s my fault,” the Master answered, feeling centuries of frustration threatening to come pouring out. “All of it. Every last bit.”

Donna shook her head. “It can’t be, not all. Still, you’re the last ones. You only have each other. Even I feel the loss of Gallifrey and I’m not a proper member of your race.” She offered him a smile, then, one full of human faith. “You both think you have an eternity to sort each other, but you’re getting old. One of you has to start doing something different.”

The Master would think about that, but right now he had some pretty severe depression going on and couldn’t focus. “I get you,” he said.

Donna smiled again and patted his hand before returning to the television. “I’m glad you came back, by the way; I’d have missed you.”

“No one ever misses me,” the Master said, shutting his eyes.

“The Doctor has,” she reminded in the softest voice.

 

**

 

Donna remembered the night her husband died on New Year’s Day. The Master pulled her from the kitchen while she still raged and sobbed and cursed in Gallifreyan, making her go with him to Wilfred’s haunt at the top of the hill. It surprised him she’d chosen Gallifreyan, actually, but a metacrisis transfer doubtless had dimensions hidden within dimensions.

“I as good as killed Shawn,” Donna cried, sitting down and immediately balling up.

The Master had, for the sake of curiosity, looked at the coroner’s report for Shawn Temple’s death a week ago. “Your husband had a genetic infirmity,” he lied easily. “I read the report. He was a ticking time bomb, Donna; no medicine on Earth could have saved him.”

Still crying, Donna grabbed a fistful of his shirt and buried her face in it.

The Master had never dealt with a genuine, crying female before, of any species. So, for lack of experience or plan, he indulged himself in feeling her hair. It soothed him, those long, slick strands of dark copper running through his fingers. Surprisingly, it also seemed to soothe Donna. Only an hour passed before she fell asleep on him, exhausted and her face wan with grief.

He picked her up and carried her down to the house, careful to not allow her head to flop around. His chest hurt again.

 

**

 

Donna got stuck on the Gallifreyan language for a solid week. She forgot English during that week. The Master enjoyed exercising his native tongue exclusively, and everyone else had to cope with not knowing what the hell they were on about.

 

**

 

The Master gave Wilfred his room back and began sleeping on the recreation room couch. Cartoons helped his depression a great deal, as did the distraction of teaching Donna. He found he liked the glow of a television set as he tried to sleep, and that Sylvia’s shortbread biscuits were as good as her tea when indulged in late at night. He gained a pound or two and thought he looked better.

 

**

 

Spring came, and with it new hope. The nice little suburb he’d lived in all winter now felt familiar, which always, always made him feel better. He started taking walks to deal with his renewed energy, but alone. Donna always took a nap at two o’clock every day for precisely one hour, in which time she assimilated the Doctor’s mind into herself and herself into the Doctor’s mind.

He was standing in the park watching a pair of mated black swans when he heard the Doctor’s TARDIS materializing yards behind him. His hearts thundered out of rhythm for five whole seconds, making him shaky and almost sick. Wiping his palms on his thighs, he turned and watched.

The Doctor bounded out with a device in his palm, obviously trying to orient a signal. He’d regenerated. The Master sucked in a breath as he looked at that young face and the ancient eyes framed within. He was older, tired in the soul even if his physical body had never been quite so… athletic.

The device in the Doctor’s hand began loudly beeping as it swiveled toward the Master. The Doctor looked straight at him and froze. The Master put his hands behind his back and waited. If he approached he’d put the Doctor on his guard even more.

Thirty-six steps and they stood a polite distance apart. The Master’s guts felt they’d turned to water. “You seem to have a Master-Detector,” he said.

“It’s keyed to your artron,” the Doctor replied quietly. “You left traces in the control room.” He tilted his head and gave the Master a smile, the sort one knows isn’t appropriate but can’t be prevented. “You have to be the most relentless, determined, irrepressible soul ever made.”

“I’ve thought the same about you, often,” the Master replied, watching his confession change the Doctor’s face into wide-eyed surprise. “Reach into my right front coat pocket.”

Slowly, the Doctor did, and he found the laser. He eyed it a moment.

“That’s so you know I’m unarmed,” the Master said. “Tea?”

“Are you offering me tea?” The Doctor just stared at him.

The Master made his reply to the affirmative in their shared tongue. The Doctor still stared at him.

“What’s the trick?”

“I have none at this time. Your arrival was unexpected.”

“You’re channeling your Svengali incarnation.”

“He had better words.”

Silence. They stared at each other now, not moving.

The Master successfully suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and sigh. “You can have tea with me, or capture me, or go on your merry way,” he prodded verbally. “Actually you can do any combination of the kind or all three at once. Kindly inform me in which order everything will fall.”

“Do you need capturing?” the Doctor asked, his eyes going nearly bottomless, but also so very kind.

“I think I might, at least initially,” the Master admitted. “Transition is difficult when a large ego is involved.”

The Doctor scratched his head. “All right. Consider yourself captured.”

“Excellent. Tea?”

“Please.”

 

**

 

The Master invited the Doctor to sit in the garden where he’d left his tea in a thermos for after his walk. The Doctor looked at the modest house behind them and lifted an eyebrow as the Master poured. “When you make a base, it’s always opulent. This house isn’t as rich as what you usually aim for.”

“It’s the richest home I’ve ever lived in,” the Master informed, thinking of the people inside. “I don’t have much time,” he added, checking the watch he’d bought for linear living. “Let me explain a few things before it gets on two o’clock.”

“What happens at two o’clock?” The Doctor started to sip his tea and stopped with the cup up to his lips at the sight of Sylvia Noble striding toward their area.

“There you are,” Sylvia said, and the Master winced at her tone. He hadn’t heard her voice pitched like that in ages. “And just where-?” She stopped and looked at the Master. “Who’s this?”

“It’s the Doctor, Sylvia,” the Master said.

“Oh.” Sylvia looked the silent, stunned Doctor up and down a few seconds. “It still applies, then,” she said firmly. “Where have you _**been**_? Christmas come and gone with the three of them pining! You have nerve!”

“It’s fine, Sylvia,” the Master said, putting his hands on his shoulders and turning her around. “He’s sorted. Make sure we don’t have company until two, would you?”

“Right, but he should know-.”

“I’m about to tell him.”

“Tell me what?” The Doctor started to stand and the Master gave him a pointed look.

“Drink your tea. Sylvia’s tea is perfect.”

“Oh, it is not,” the matron protested, but she went back toward the house.

The Master sat, which prompted the Doctor to do so as well. “Donna’s head isn’t going to blow up if she sees you,” he said. “I amended your work on her.”

The Doctor blinked exactly four times. “You… amended…”

“According to Wilfred, she’d started to remember things. The safeguard you put in her head to prevent that? Well, it went off and killed Donna’s husband in bed late one night.”

The Doctor put his tea down and hid his face in his hands. “Oh, no,” he whispered.

“You couldn’t have known,” the Master told him. “Shawn Temple had a weak heart. An ordinary person could have withstood it.” He tapped the Doctor’s tea cup. “Stop wallowing in it. You did your best, and Donna believes she wasn’t to blame.”

Slowly, his hand shaking, the Doctor drank a small sip of tea. “How long have you been here?”

“Since three weeks prior to Christmas,” he informed. “Nearly five months.”

“And you haven’t killed or enslaved anyone.”

“Indeed, no.” The Master thought the question entirely fair. “You should have been here the week Donna couldn’t speak anything but Gallifreyan.” He couldn’t help a little grin at the memory. “Sylvia even picked up a few, choice phrases. Honestly, _**these**_ humans are a class act once you get to know them.”

“You’ve been living with the Donna’s family about five months,” the Doctor reiterated. He finished his tea and poured another, his hands shaking.

“I started with the idea of fixing Donna just to show you up, but she quickly became a worthy project.” The Master shrugged. “She’s made a lot of progress. I estimate it will be a lifelong process, but she’s entirely able to cope with your advanced mental processes now, and only gets disoriented on the odd occasion. To be fair, it’s no worse than a mild, reoccurring case of Asperger’s Syndrome. She gets frustrated sometimes.”

The Doctor stared into him.

“We missed you at Christmas,” the Master added.

“I was a prisoner of a slaving culture on Gamma Five until recently,” the Doctor told him in a very small voice. “But, that would explain why I felt compelled to come to Earth during that time.”

The Master looked him up and down in what he felt must be similar to the way Sylvia had. “All right?” he asked, genuinely concerned and trying not to show it. “You look… tired.”

“We aren’t going to exchange heated words, just normal pleasantries?” the Doctor asked.

“Some of my fire has burned out,” the Master admitted. “I’m still insane and angry, I still have violent urges and the drums are as loud as ever. But, since I didn’t want to let loose on the first humans who gave me Christmas, I’ve shoved that shit as far back as possible.” He took the Doctor’s tea cup and poured for himself, taking a sip and trying to taste the Doctor on the rim of the hot china. To some degree, he could. “I leave them when I think I can’t control myself.”

The Doctor twitched. His arms jerked and his hands flexed. Breath leaving him in a rush, he stood up and went rigid. “I really, really just want to hug you right now,” he confessed. “Will I get a knife in the ribs?”

The Master stood and opened his arms. “No.”

In two steps he was covered in Doctor, breathing him in from the closest range possible, feeling his hard chest against his own. The feel of his wiry arms around his shoulders was so good it hurt. “Master,” he whispered in his ear.

“See, Doctor?” The Master replied, hearing his voice shake. “Christmas miracles are even better than you thought.”

“I see,” the Doctor assured, not letting go of him or even slackening his hold.

The Master felt their hearts beating against each other, and it was painfully perfect. He managed to get his arms up and spread his hands on each side of the Doctor’s trim little waist. Oh, he felt good. The right temperature, the right scent, the right _everything_. “You can’t imagine how I’ve missed you,” he confessed, and then his voice broke altogether. “This has been awful, waiting for you. Yet, I can’t regret it.”

“Oh, stop, or happiness will kill me,” the Doctor protested fiercely. He pushed his nose into the Master’s lower hairline and inhaled slowly, smelling him with a vengeance. “I thought you were locked in the Time War. When I made the device to track you it was a last effort at containing myself, busy work to give me hope. Then, I actually caught a trace of you, and I thought it was impossible.”

“You know I don’t ever give up,” the Master chastised mildly. “I made the president drop me. This is when and where I landed. Tell me that’s not a prod from the God Machine.”

 

**

 

“Drop me off here for a week or two,” Donna asked, breezing into the control room dressed in clothes meant for a spa and carrying a huge suitcase. “Sun, sand, salt water and spoiling; just what I need.”

The Master grinned. Donna had harped for two standard days to be let off on a relaxation planet, and this one suited her. Plenty of good looking men and pampering to be found here. “Fifty-fourth century humans are liberated,” he warned. “You might get more attention than you know what to do with.”

“Oh, like you two?” She snapped back smartly. “I think being attacked by a group of randy humans might be less stressful than being between the hot-eyed looks of current company.” She tossed her hair off her shoulders and smiled at how the Doctor had started blushing. “Oh, come on. You two need a little privacy.” She checked the controls and nodded. “Yeah, two weeks ought to do it. Don’t go haring off on a new adventure without me.” She opened the doors and strode out with a spring in her step. “Tra!”

The Master looked at his counterpart and grinned even harder. “She doesn’t know her aging has slowed down yet, does she?”

“Doesn’t even suspect it,” the Doctor confirmed, shutting the doors with a snap of his fingers. “I estimate a day for every standard year as her aging ratio.”

“That’s what I had figured,” the Master admitted, coming up to the platform and standing close to him. “We haven’t been very covert in our hot-eyed looks, I see.”

The Doctor blushed harder, but affected an innocent mien. “Hot eyed?” he questioned.

“Yes.” The Master edged closer. “Don’t play coy. You want me.”

“I want you in a lot of ways. Which way are you referring to?” The Doctor tried to hide a smile and failed utterly.

“Any way you can get me,” the Master answered. “Fortunately for you, Doctor, I’m amenable and even eager to see what you come up with.” He pressed their sides together and just stood there, feeling the Doctor tremble. “Top or bottom, sitting or standing, dominant or submissive…”

The Master found himself at the end of a pair of very busy hands and lips.

They didn’t make it into a bedroom.

 

Donna had perfect timing.

 


End file.
